All the best bits of Breakstra's funky back catalogue chopped and diced, Grab it here; (zshare) (mediafire).

"With tasteful scratches, doubled-up breakbeats, and slick transitions, Miles' mix offers a picture of some of his most crowd pleasing output covering Breakestra's original material, trademark covers, and even a few live rarities. "

Thursday, September 17, 2009

New Breakestra!
Grab a new Breakestra tune over here.Niceness.
"The song we’ve chosen to post here – a Dee Felice Trio meets Charles Stephney by way of Ramsey Lewis circa Mother Nature’s Son jaunt entitled “You’ll Never Know” – is one of a trio of instrumentals on the album [Dawn Til Dusk, out end of September]. As with the entire album, the spirit of the late homey DJ Dusk looms large. It’s not a melancholic ride, rather an introspective one that feels triumphant by the close of the album."

Short Sharp Shopping mix
Last weekend I scored a ton of records - Conch Records had a sale for market day up in Ponsonby, and then D.O.C. on K Rd had record fair. Bargains galore! So, here's a random mix of the tunes I bought, one-take styles. Starts off with some 80s funk, then hits mad cover versions, gets all modern and bleepy for a minute before going jazzy and finishing off with some dub. Enjoy!

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Stonesthrow dropping bombs

Right now, the Stonesthrow record label is killing it, thanks to a young white kid from Detroit who goes by the name of Mayer Hawthorne. His album is called A Strange Arrangement, and came out Stateside Sept 8, and drops here on Sept 21. His album also comes as a ltd edition CD and 2/LP packaged w 4-inch vinyl single containing 2 non-album tracks. 2/LP with "alligator skin" cover. Seriously cool. There's a great interview with Mayer Hawthorne here. His sound aint a million miles from the new Open Souls album, similar Motown/soul influences coming thru.

Find out why he's getting such a buzz from this live review. He and his band "rolled mid-set into a live version of Slum Village’s “Fall In Love.” The Michigan-born bassist and guitarist supplied harmonies for Dilla’s haunting hook, while Mayer Hawthorne let a beyond-capacity crowd at L.A.’s The Roxy know that none of his rise would be possible without Dilla and Baatin."

Stonesthrow has also got this tasty delight from Egon - Live at the Do-over as a free mp3 download. "Egon DJed at L.A.’s Do-Over party this past Sunday. Nas and Beenie Man waited in line and couldn’t get in. We’re not kidding."

But wait, there's more! There's a free album download from Koushik, called the Beep Tape. 30 tracks of instrumentals.

The Stonesthrow website is a shining example of what a record label can do to communicate with their audience, and keep them engaged. It's their storefront, their diary, their press kit, their little goldmine. Genius. I could dig round their site for hours.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Ring The Alarm playlist Sept 12My thanks to Tigi Ness of reggae band Unity Pacific for coming up to the show to talk about the Panther Party celebration on tonight at Samoa House, details here.

Tigi also talked about his involvement with the Polynesian Panthers here in Auckland back in the early 70s, including their Dawn Raids on govt ministers of the day, including one where he and his mates drove out to Pakuranga to Immigration Minister Bill Birch's house at 3am, and turned their spotlights on the house and pulled out their megaphones and said "Mister Bill Birch, come out with your passport".

The lights went on inside the house, then the front door flew open and out came Mr Birch. They all raced to their cars and took off. Two weeks later the Government stopped the dawn raids.

Tigi got kicked out of Mt Albert Grammar at 17 for refusing to cut his hair - he had an afro, inspired by Jimi Hendrix. He joined the Panthers about that time too.

There's a great book on the history of the Polynesian Panthers that was published by Reed Publishing in 2006, called Polynesian Panthers. Track it down if you want to learn more about them. It's a fascinating chapter in our history. (NZ Herald article on the book, here)

Friday, September 11, 2009

Music Machines - local 84 stylesI recently mentioned the Music Machines event coming up on November 21st - a collection of classic synths and drum machines happening in Auckland. My mate Jason, who is putting this event together, has been researching the history of electronica in NZ (he's originally from the UK, and grew up there in the 80s and 90s, so it's all new to him). I put him onto another mate of mine, Tom Ludvigson, a wicked keyboard player who has been round the traps for a while.

Tom currently plays in Trip to The Moon amongst others, but back in 1984 he was involved in a collaboration with a group of Auckland musicians who cooked up NZ's first electro breakdance record -Sidewalk City, by Snap. I remembered I had a copy of it on vinyl, so I dug it out and digitised it for Jason. He's put it up on the music machines site, go have a listen, it's very cool.

From Music Machines: "Tom been a synth man for about 30 years and has been involved in many Auckland bands as a player and composer, head over to his site Jazzscore for more on Tom’s musical projects.

We were discussing the synth scene in the early 80’s, as this was when I first got in to hiphop and electro back in the UK, Tom remembered working on a track under the name “Snap” called “Sidewalk City” which Tom said had been influenced by the early electro coming out of the states at the time. I was aware of bands like Car Crash Set which seemed to be influenced more by the darker side of synth music at the time and wasn’t aware of any US influenced electro coming out of NZ from the early 80’s, I had to hear it....

.... I thought I’d ask Tom for any recollections of the session as I’m fascinated by all the elements which make up the track, particularly the mc vocal and the layers of synths and techniques used in the production.

“Recalling the session, recorded to 24track tape at Harlequin Studios, a few things stick out:

The musicality of the “Triangle” production team of Graeme Gash, Paul Streekstra and Noel Connolly;

The experimental the-studio-as-an-instrument approach;

The trial-and-error art of overdubbing Polysix arpeggiator lines in sync with the track without the benefit of hard sync: first tweak the arpeggiator tempo knob until it sounds right, then trigger it exactly on time, every time. It worked with repeated drop-ins…;

Borrowing a just-released Oberheim OB-X polysynth to do state-of-the-art sounding overdubs for the extended dance mix;

Four of us jamming the extended dance mix at the 24-track console, eight hands together tweaking sliders and delay buttons for a dubby atmospheric mix.”

"London in the 1950’s was a cold place in more ways than the obvious. Or so it appeared if you were one of the thousands of newly arrived Jamaicans. Many were overqualified for their menial jobs. Thousands of others quite simply could not get work. Discrimination and racial tensions culminated in fierce riots in both Nottingham and Notting Hill Gate.

It was in this environment that the Jamaican soundmen; Duke Vin and Count Suckle arrived in the UK. They both stowed away on a boat from Kingston and brought with them a sound that was sweeping across the small Caribbean island and would later change the face of music in the UK. This was the sound of ska!"Great interview with the film's director, Gus Berger.

Wednesday, September 09, 2009

Chromeo break it down Montreal duo Chromeo breaks down their DJ-Kicks mix, check this video.

"In an interview around their first DJ mix and the first DJ-Kicks release in two years, the duo talk about their late exposure to quality electronic music, P-Thugg's demotion to the bass guitar, the email which convinced Trevor Jackson to do the album cover, Dave 1's relative ignorance of the Eagles catalog, and what their cover of "I Can't Tell You Why" has in common with a number of Hall & Oates hits... Appropriately, given Montreal's rich history as a disco hotspot, there's a French Canadian theme woven loosely into the mix..."

Turns out one of them used to sell digeridoo's out of the back of his car before they started up Cromeo. Keeping it real.

If you want to check out their cover of The Eagles' "I Can't Tell You Why", grab it from their site. Chromeo - DJ Kicks is out Sept 29.

" Jay-Z when he was good" Last week I saw DJ Ayres pop up on Twitter and start bagging the new Jay-Z album Blueprint 3. Like a lot of hiphop cats out there on dem innernetz, he wasn't feeling Jay's new stuff. So he said he was gonna go and dig out all the old tunes of Jay-Z's from back in the day. True to his word, he's dropped the mix over at The Rub, called D.O.J: when Jay was good. (the DOJ bit is a play on Jay-Z's tune D.O.A short for death of autotune).

"... Since Jay “retired” and came back, his music hasn’t sounded as urgent or hungry to me. He sounds like he’s coasting along, so I wanted to go back and pull out a bunch of his music that made you bob your head, marvel at his flow, puff out your chest, or even raise the little hairs on the back of your neck.

Not included: #1 singles you’ve heard a million times, lazy one-take flows, lyrics about inventing the button-down shirt, songs dissing rappers who would later be signed to Jay-Z’s label, and songs produced by Eminem."

Download it here. I'm not up on Jay's early stuff, so I'm looking forward to getting educated on it.

Tuesday, September 08, 2009

NZ Music Awards reinventedThe NZMA's are often cause for controversy, who gets thru, who misses out in the nominations, etc. Witness the latest blog from Stuff.co.nz/Dominion Post writer Simon Sweetman, bemoaning this years nominees. He takes issue with Midnight Youth ("They do nothing to promote New Zealand music in their sound"), P-Money, Ladyhawke, and this gem about Smashproof - "They do nothing to promote a realistic portrait of what happens in New Zealand within their sound and they have nothing original to say. They have also helped promote the Amy Winehouse-wannabe that is Gin Wigmore..." Go and read the comments under his blog post, very amusing...

But there is one way that might make the event a bit more exciting - have the contestants battle it out in the ring. Three rounds, no holds barred. Wrestling or boxing maybe. Or as was suggested by Real Grooves editor Duncan Grieve, make it similar to the UFC fights.

Then I came up with this idea - make it a freestyle MC battle. Think about it. Best solo artist fight-out is between Savage and Don McGlashan, except Don has to do Savage and vice versa. Now Don McGlashan, let me hear you SWIIIINNNGGG! And Savage is off to the hotdog house halfway down Dominion Rd...

As @realgroove said "Comedy Gold. I think Don interpolating Savage's growl would be a key moment. All the awards should be decided like this ... would like to see the Legacy award winners go at it. Johnny Devlin vs Ray Columbus. boom."

Now, imagine the best solo female artist category - Ladi6 vs Ladyhawke. Or how about Fat Freddys vs Mint Chicks for best group? Awesome. Hey C4, make it happen, yeah?

Saturday, September 05, 2009

Headless Chickens infringe copyright?Chris Matthews is a former member of the band the Headless Chickens. This is his latest status update on Facebook...

"Dear Warners Music Group: Thanks very much for complaining to the site about me infringing copyright on MY songs on the Headless Chickens MySpace page, you stupid fuckers. I hope you rot in the 7th level of corporate hell, shit-for-brains arsehole muthafuckers."

And then there's the thread of replies to this... some highlights..

Chris Matthews: Fucking unbelievable. I made some of the songs free to download there for about a month about a year ago and now I can't even change the songs that are there or upload any new ones, and I only just found out it was WMG that made the complaint. And I'll have to go to virtual MySpace court to suss it out. Fuckwits.

Shayne P Carter: i had that palaver with myspace. turned out they'd been advised by the record co. that "crystalator" had been written by alec bathgate so i wasn't allowed to upload it. ah - such care and conscientiousness ! maybe i wrote your stuff.

Harry Russell: well what fuck do U expect from Murdoch

Scott Anderson: that is arse. Heh. One gf once said to me "why do you keep all these F.Nun CDs/Vinyl. You don't listen to them, why not sell them?" And I said, well, in ten years none of them will be available and I might want to listen to them again one day. She thought I was being stupid, but...

Chris Matthews ...there has been a whole raft of ex-F. Nun musicians who are pretty unhappy with the way things have gone down with Warners and have been trying to negotiate their way out of contracts that may or may not have been signed at some point in the past. Finding those contracts some 20 or more years later is proving to be the difficult thing. Most of us have told Warners directly or thru lawyers about how unhappy we are with things, although Warners may no longer own the rights to F. Nun but we'll find out about that in due course. I hope.

Spotted over at Gawker: "Klaus Nomi at Danceteria, breakdancers at The Roxy, grooving at Paradise Garage! In this 1983 episode of the British television show The Tube the hosts go exploring Manhattan's club scene. Welcome back to dirty New York."

Egon (Now-Again/Stonesthrow) on record shopping in JapanEgon and Cut Chemist have been doing a bunch of gigs in Japan recently, check out Egon's tour diary at the Now-Again site. Snip...

"... I came close to buying the Tenorio Jr. and the Booker Pittman albums until I realized that, no matter how good they are, spending $1000 on bossa-jazz just ain’t happening in 2009.... I wrote about the end of record digging in Japan in my NPR column earlier this year. This trip didn’t change my assessment...."

Wheedle's Groove: funky new business from some funky old cats.Check the Light in the Attic page about this awesome record Kearney Barton by Wheedle's Groove (go there and grab a free mp3 off this album!) Worth it for the soul cover of Stone Roses - Fools Gold (reimagined by funky 60-something old black dudes). The story goes like this...

"Light In The Attic is happy to put forth Wheedle's Groove - Kearney Barton, an album of 9 new earth shaking, head nodding grooves, including Patrinell (Pastor Pat Wright) Staten and the Total Experience Gospel Choir’s interpretation of Soundgarden's "Jesus Christ Pose," Overton Berry's keyboard led "Humpty Dumpty" (originally recorded by Placebo/Marc Moulin), and the long overdue reunion of Ron Buford with Ural Thomas - the talented pair behind the 1965 local smash "Deep Soul".

"Don’t call it a comeback; they’ve been here for years. “Here” being Seattle, and “they” being the players who feature on the excellent 2004 collection Wheedle’s Groove: Seattle’s Finest in Funk & Soul 1965-75, which showcased the mostly forgotten (and often quite good) R&B acts from the Emerald City. So for Light in the Attic, the hometown label that put the compilation out, re-connecting with a number of those same players and singers was a risk — you never know if one-time music heroes will retain their chops. But Kearney Barton — named for the album’s engineer, and featuring a handful of appearances by those stellar out-of-towners the Muscle Shoals Horns — is a breezy gem, latter-day retro-funk that a label like Daptone would be happy to call its own." (from Emusic - they have it available on prerelease right now.)

"Wheedle's Groove is the name of the band. After a sell-out live show [celebrating the release of the Wheedles Groove compilation of 70s Seattle funk and soul] all the main artists got together in the studio to cut this album of covers and originals - Pastor Pat Wright, Total Experience Gospel Choir, Robbie Hill, Ron Buford, Ural Thomas, members of Black And White Affair, Cookin' Bag, Cold Bold & Together and more...a veritable Seattle soul-funk supergroup.

The album was recorded at the very studio where it all began - Audio Recording - with the man who not only fostered an original Northwest sound but engineered some of the original Wheedle's Groove tracks - studio wiz Kearney Barton (The Sonics, The Wailers, Black On White Affair). (source)

Friday, September 04, 2009

P-Money/Patea Maori Club -Poi E remix liveGenuine kiwi classic, reversioned by P-Money. This was a groundbreaking tune when it came out in New Zealand back in 1984, and it was a hit single too (22 weeks in the charts, 4 weeks at #1). It's living history. There's a bunch more I could say about this, but really all I want to say his this. Watch this video - it's the shit.

"The video above is a live remix of the New Zealand classic "Poi E" performed by the Patea Maori Club with help from myself and the legendary Hamilton Hip-Hop crew 4 Corners. I just found this very rare footage of what was a one time only performance at the 2006(7?) APRA Silver Scroll Awards. A very special performance it was.

[Edit] My man @KaseBeats came through with an mp3 of the Clean audio straight from the desk. Grab it while its hot http://tiny.cc/FHjv4

Mayer Hawthorne remix for youTo celebrate Mayer Hawthornes album hitting the top ten on iTunes (US), Stonesthrow have dropped a tasty remix of Just Aint Gonna Work Out. Go grab his album off iTunes if you're Stateside. Due out any day now in NZ. Can't wait!

Thursday, September 03, 2009

RIP Steely (of legendary reggae production duo Steely and Clevie)Passed away, in his early 50s in New York on Sept 1, of heart failure. He had a history of diabetes and related health issues.

"Although the Trench Town-born Wycliffe 'Steely' Johnson was best known for creating some of dancehall's biggest techno jams of the 1980s and 1990s with drummer Cleveland Browne, he started his career as a studio musician.He worked with several producers, including Augustus Pablo, and was a founding member of the Roots Radics studio band for producer Henry 'Junjo' Lawes, owner of the Volcano label.

Johnson and Browne became an official unit during the 1980s, after playing on Bob Marley and the Wailers' Confrontation album. They were members of producer Lloyd 'King Jammys' James red-hot team that played on a flood of hit songs by Admiral Bailey, Shabba Ranks and Nitty Gritty.While they were one of the most in-demand producers in 1990s dancehall, Steely and Clevie said one of their most cherished projects was a Studio One tribute album they recorded in 1992.

The set featured covers of 10 songs from the legendary studio. One of them, Dawn Penn's No, No, No, became an international hit two years after the album was released by Heartbeat Records and resurrected the career of Penn, who first recorded the song at Studio One in 1969."

The first song I played on a piano was No, No, No. I always wanted to do the song, it's something Clevie and I premeditated for years," he said in a 2001 interview.

The following year, the duo hit it big again when their production of Sean Paul and Sasha's I'm Still In Love With You entered Billboard magazine's pop chart. The song was originally done in the 1960s by Alton Ellis and his sister Hortense." From Jamaica Gleaner

Music Machines - synths galore!Heard about this? Jason from Bluevibe Studio came up with this great idea, about "being in a room full to the ceiling with classic synths and drum machines, all plugged in and working, being played all at the same time by a crowd of musicians making one hell of a funky racket." And blow me down if he hasnt gone out and made it happen! Nice one, fella.

"Music Machines is now going to be held on November 21st 09 and you can check out the Music Machines website and Facebook page for all the latest news on the first collection of it’s kind in New Zealand. I’ll be announcing all the guest speakers and performing artists over the next few weeks and will keep you all updated with the full list of kit you’ll be able to get your hands on at the event." Heard rumours od Nigel Russell from Car Crash Set might be there, as one of the speakers.

quote: "Record collections should be carefully cultivated, like in horticulture, where the healthiest plants get trimmed. Whenever I purge my collection of duplicates and duds, I enjoy it far more. I know too many “vinyl junkies” who’ve allowed the sheer size of their collections to overwhelm their lives — in every nook and cranny of their house or apartment. I love and respect many of these people, but it’s clearly made them severly mentally ill. I strive for a healthy relationship with my vinyl obsession…."Link

Congrats to DJ Sirvere!Local hiphop luminary DJ Sirvere (Phil Bell) recently celebrated the 200th edition of his radio show the Late Night Hype on MaiFM. He had a bunch of special guests up to help him celebrate this milestone, including Che Fu. As Sirvere notes in his blog, Che has never been on the show... "Now I had been woofing on about how Che had never come on the show and then at some point realised I had never asked.."

Monday, August 31, 2009

RIP DJ AMA lot of the media coverage of the sad passing of DJ AM (Adam Goldstein) have talked about his celebrity girlfriends and his high profile gigs at parties for famous people (and featured some sordid speculation on how he died, which is just sick), but bottom line, he knew how to rock a party - check this video, as he does a mean demo on Serato.

I watched on Twitter as the news spread on saturday morning (NZT), with his DJ friends expressing their grief.DJ A-Trak; "What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck my bro just called me I'm in an isolated house in france. Is this for real????????4:39 PM Aug 28thI'm really really really really really sad. I guess it's true. RIP to my man DJ AM. An amazing DJ and one of the kindest people I've known.5:25 PM Aug 28thDiplo: Dj am was the first guy that was a big deal that believed in me, and gave me props5:26 PM Aug 28th... Here's my last random thoughts on DJ am ... http://bit.ly/aznGx

He was down here in NZ last June to play at Serato's tenth anniversary party...

“ Jazzy Jeff and DJ Sizzahandz were the first to tell me about Serato [Scratch LIVE]. I had seen DJ Solomon on Final Scratch and it sucked. I tried it and the latency was so bad I said, ‘I will never be a Digital DJ,’ just like I passed on the corny ass CDJs when they came out. I have Technics tattooed on my wrist as my only tattoo. I love the turntable. Once I saw, felt and heard how amazing SSL sounded, I was hooked. I said it before and I will say it again: SSL is the best thing to happen to DJing since the turntable. I love it. ” Link.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Breakestra get backStand by for some funk goodness from Los Angeles crew Breakestra, check the sample below.

"Breakstra's second full length album of original material is due at the end of September, and serves as a tribute to DJ Dusk, Miles' DJ partner at L.A.'s Rootdown party, whose life was tragically taken in a road accident in 2007. "Breakestra- "Get It Right" (zshare) (mediafire)